Zillow IPO – What Does It Say about the Real Estate Market?

Published by nora | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Market Trends, Miscellaneous, Mortgage / Finance, Real Estate

The real estate market must be getting exciting now because the leading online real estate firm Zillow has filed an S-1 form with the SEC for an IPO. Even its rival Trulia is said to be discussing the possibility of holding an IPO.

The U.S. real estate market has been struggling since 2007, so the Zillow IPO registration announcement is a positive development. The Seattle technology community is excited, as Zillow is a well known tech company in Seattle, and Zillow co-founder Rich Barton is a widely admired entrepreneur in Seattle, according to write-ups about the IPO.

Based on the IPO filing, the Zillow website received 19.4 million unique visits last March, up from 12.7 million visits in December 2010. Web tracking firm Quantcast, however, estimates that Zillow receives 5 million visits a month. Another website tracker, Compete, shows on its charts that Zillow got 6.94 million visits last March. Rival firm Trulia got 5.88 visits last March, according to Compete, and gets 4.1 million visits a month, according to Quantcast.

Zillow also indicated in its S-1 SEC filing that its revenues increased by 74 percent to $30.5 million in 2010. It’s not yet profitable as it’s still losing, posting $6.8 million in net losses in 2010. But the losses have been falling since 2009 and the revenues have been rising since 2008.

If the IPO pushes through and becomes successful, it would be a supercharged boost for the real estate market. It would mean that investors believe in the profitability of the residential property sector. Other real estate IPOs are expected to follow, and would further give media exposure for the housing industry.

In March, sales of existing homes increased by 3.7 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors. From an adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million units of single-family homes, condos, townhomes and co-ops in February, the annual rate increased to 5.1 million units in March.

Of the total existing homes sold in March, 33 percent were purchased by first time home buyers, 22 percent were bought by investors and the rest by repeat buyers. All-cash purchases were 35 percent of total sales, a record share and an increase from 33 percent in February.

In addition to Zillow’s IPO, the above sales data is another positive development for the industry.

Zillow offers data and software applications freely available to customers, but its Premier Agent subscription service affirms the reality that real estate agents still hold the key to efficient home purchases and closings for home buyers.

Indeed, real estate agents are the home buyers’ partners in home buying. In Tampa, they’re the Tampa4U.com professionals.